583 réponses à ce sujet

[OdanUrr]

In Exile wrote...

Certainly lots of people were okay with the Warden being an errand runner, Revan being an errand runner, the Spirit Monk (for those who played JE) being an errand runner, and the Bhaalspawn being an errand runner, so I'd bet being an errand runner who saves the world by running the bestest errands for the biggest scope would be well received. 

I detect sarcasm... I know what you mean, perhaps that story gets old after a while. And, you know, I'd probably have enjoyed DA2 a lot more if I'd had to think long and hard on my choices and their possible outcomes. It needs, to my mind, several more layers of intricacy, and the backdrop is rich enough to achieve this.

[Brockololly]

In Exile wrote...
But as it stands. people praised DA:O's design. And what Bioware took out of that was that their model was justified, not that players expected essentially two separate games if they made opposite choices.

Yet, I think at least in part though, with BioWare's model of choice and consequences (especially with ME) you expect some of the consequences to come possibly in a sequel, what with BioWare now trying to pump up the import feature in their games. I think thats why many more mainstream reviewers give ME2 's story a pass, on the premise ME3 will fix everything and tie things up beyond a stupid little email. Not that BioWare games have ever really fulfilled that promise of cashing in on consequence via a sequel, but thats what ME3 is trying to do. But I don't expect they'll do it well there.

In Exile wrote...
This is exactly what DA:O is. It's just flashy presentation and fluff.

It's all you know in-game until you hit these magic epilogue slides that are just (like you said) flash and fluff to make your choices seem important even if the content is identical. 

Eh...the "flash and fluff" would be more stuff like having to include player VO or having every single damn dialogue cutscene have over the top cinematics when its a basic conversation. That kind of resource allocation. Cause I just don't see EA/BioWare taking the massive risk of doing something like CD Projekt did with TW2's branching content when they seem intent on sticking with that kind of presentation style, especially if they keep male and female leads. Thats why I'd be more content with scaling back on the presentation if it meant more consequence, even if it didn't have the PC gabbing while the camera does a Paul Greengrass shaky-cam back and forth as somebody simply says "Hello, how as your day." "My day was good." "Ok, bye."

Thats especially the case when you hear of how only X% of people finish the game. That seems to be the excuse devs trot out when people ask why plot thread Y didn't branch out into some unique quest Z-  Cause by that point only X% of people were playing or "You'd be making 2 entirely spearate games and nobody would see all the content in one playthrough" and how that would therefore be wasted work.

I think BioWare is just blowing their zots in areas that are more superfluous when you're trying to make a reactive RPG- a video game- and not just a second rate interactive movie, given the constraints they have. But of course, thats if BioWare is trying to make a reactive video game and not just an interactive narrative, which going by interviews, is all they're trying to make now anyway.

Modifié par Brockololly, 13 juillet 2011 - 04:40 .

[Morroian]

In Exile wrote...
Actually, I think the real problem DA2 had (and it influenced the whole design) is that most players did have an easy answer to the mage-tempalr problem, and then DA2 had a lot of elements designed to tip the scales and it just ended up creating a giant, incoherent mess.[...]Here is the problem: Bioware retained the worst aspect of RPG design: in-character rewards being the reward for a choice instead of "player" rewards.[...]That's because of how it resonates for you, the player. But Bioware designed this to resonate for your character, i.e. who you want Hawke to be. But what Bioware thought players did to RP and what players do is not the same thing. And that was a big part of their failure.[...]And here you emphasize my point: for you it came down to this. But Bioware never wanted it to come down to that. It should be "for Hawke" and that rationale should be unique to the Hawke you create.

But if Bioware are trying to encourage a particular type of role playing where they want you to role play a totally different character to yourself and not a self insert character is it a failure? And why is the worst aspect of rpg design?

I get that they ended up with a mess in Act 3 because they were taking a choice that is a no brainer for most people and trying to make it harder. But thats because they're dealing with background they themselves set up for DAO that they now want to tear down, presumably because they regard it as too restrictive for future games. Hopefully this means they will be freer in DA3, and hopefully further games, to create situations that are easier to write multiple viewpoints around.

In Exile wrote...
It's based on these concepts that you choose dialogue, choose quests, choose outcomes. The reward for you is the experience of that choice, the mental exercise in picking B over C over A (as dialogue or outcomes). Whether or not the consequences are the same is irrelevant, because the character is experiencing them differently. 
But players (like me) don't care about the mental experience as much as reactivity. 

Whereas I seem to like the 'mental experience' and use those choices to create a mental picture of my character, that is not me. Which is why I question whether its a failure. 

In Exile wrote...

The role-played character's ethics and yourethics aren't the same thing (unless you want them to be). That's my point. I may well be wrong, but based on what David Gaidner was talking about when he compared how much more you can define Hawke vs. Shepard, I think there was a conscious choice to leave Hawke very undefined for players to RP in the classic sense and fill gaps. I think that's really poor design, but what Bioware ended up going with. 

I take it this is the failure you refer to in the quotes above. But does that mean you regard classical role playing as poor design? 

Modifié par Morroian, 13 juillet 2011 - 04:41 .

[astreqwerty]

is op serious??what most wrpgs didnt have is a stroyline of ten years set in one ****ing city with a promise from the devs that a champion will come and highly alter it through the years.Aside the fact that the city stayed the same for a decade and you had access to its 4 buildings and its 3 streets right of the bat,da2s choices (and while i agree with you that most wrpgs have choices that ultimately impact the finale) didnt even alter the ending where the choice between mages and templars led to an inevitable war..it didnt matter.in the end everyone went nuts and turned on you

[OdanUrr]

Morroian wrote...

I take it this is the failure you refer to in the quotes above. But does that mean you regard classical role playing as poor design? 

Should we get into a discussion of classical RPG? It seems DA2 is challenging our perceptions on this matter.

[astreqwerty]

ademska wrote...

OdanUrr wrote...

all that stuff

you say unfulfilled, and i certainly understand where people come from on this issue, but for me, for once having a story where the character wasn't destined to succeed -- where in fact his major success happens midway through the game and everything beyond it was a deconstruction of the aftermath, a study of his failure -- was completely fulfilling.. this is all personal preference, but i found it much more compelling than playing the epic hero who conquers all and averts disaster. so, again, i wasn't unfulfilled at all. origins certainly didn't get me talking and thinking this much, mass effect either.

side note: did i just read a transcript of an Extra Credits? because your writing style is identical.

who says otherwise..?i think all of us are kinda tired with heroes of destiny.we had that a million times now and i also think most forumers would agree that da2 plot had great overall potential..the fact is that potential wasnt exploited properly and the games best bet,hawkes interactivity with the city and it residents,was a lie..

[MeAndMySandvich]

OdanUrr wrote...

I think this is probably the gist of it. This is what happens in a novel, the characters make choices in the novel that will lead to a certain outcome. If you read the book again, you may come to understand why they made those choices, you may agree or disagree with them, but the choice will remain the same no matter how many times you read the novel. Hawke's story is told in this manner, Varric is living proof. This puts a considerable restriction in your freedom to roleplay.

We can argue this is also true of a lot of RPG games that do not have this "framed narrative." We can even take it further and say, "all choices will invariably lead to the end," and this is true as well for every RPG out there. But the problem here, which I mentioned a long time ago, has to do with the lack of an overarching or long-term objective. Without it, we have no sense of purpose, no direction. If I'd known from the get-go that Hawke's purpose was little more than that of a tool to advance someone else's story, namely the mage-templar conflict, perhaps I wouldn't even have bothered in the first place. And here I refer you to my first (?) post.

Now what I think would have been an interesting way to take it would be to play Varric during the interrogation scenes, and have the game be the (possibly embellished) story he told, which the player has agency in telling through the dialogue selected for Varric. That would deal with a lot of the criticisms of aimlessness, by making the overarching narrative be the interrogation. It would also work a lot better using the frame narrative, and be a much more interesting/challenging direction to take things in.

ademska wrote...

beyond what @Morroian just said, i've written giant walls of text over the last few pages making what i considered pretty strong points about the change hawke actuates in his companions. character writing is generally considered one of bioware's strongest point -- we've got a whole thread somewhere around here full of people complaining that their characters are such a focus that they sacrifice plot.  the replay value comes from exploring the nuances of the cast in a way that books inherently can't touch.

the only difference is that you're talking about a plot-driven narrative and i'm talking about a character-driven one.

Well, ideally the characters and plot would be dynamic and interact with each other regardless of which one is the focus of the story. I do agree with you that Bioware is generally much better at writing characters than plot, but it would be nice to see strengths in both areas or at the very least a narrative format that, like the one in Mass Effect 2, plays to Bioware's strengths.

Going back to what I said to OdanUrr, the frame narrative could have been worked into this much more thoroughly. If Varric was being questioned about what kind of man/woman Hawke is, for example, he could have chosen to describe him/her in terms of his/her relationships with others. Or when questioned about Hawke's involvement, have gone "well, you can't really understand what role Hawke played in all this until you understand Hawke's relationship with Anders..." and then segued into a loyalty mission analogue where the player would, through her/his actions, determine exactly what that relationship was.

Modifié par MeAndMySandvich, 13 juillet 2011 - 05:25 .

[ademska]

MeAndMySandvich wrote...

Well, ideally the characters and plot would be dynamic and interact with each other regardless of which one is the focus of the story. I do agree with you that Bioware is generally much better at writing characters than plot, but it would be nice to see strengths in both areas or at the very least a narrative format that, like the one in Mass Effect 2, plays to Bioware's strengths.

ideally, yes, i agree. da2 is by no means perfect, but my main point is that dao isn't either -- and as far as choice-ingame consequence is concerned, i think da2 actually wins out by virtue of bioware being so much better at character than plot writing and the primary choices in da2 affecting those characters (instead of the plot).

Going back to what I said to OdanUrr, the frame narrative could have been worked into this much more thoroughly. If Varric was being questioned about what kind of man/woman Hawke is, for example, he could have chosen to describe him/her in terms of his/her relationships with others. Or when questioned about Hawke's involvement, have gone "well, you can't really understand what role Hawke played in all this until you understand Hawke's relationship with Anders..." and then segued into a loyalty mission analogue where the player would, through her/his actions, determine exactly what that relationship was.

the framed narrative is interesting, but it definitely wasn't used to its full potential. i'm not sure how i feel from a literary critique standpoint about playing varric, though the idea is interesting, but i'm definitely in favor of your alternative.  the story would have been a lot more cohesive if varric had more interludes than he actually got, and was able to, you know frame the narrative.

[In Exile]

OdanUrr wrote...
What exactly do you mean by that? The only reactivity I can think of is related to psychology.

What ademska said, basically. I think that a game should change itself and show consequences in-game. 

Brockololly wrote...
Yet, I think at least in part though, with BioWare's model of choice and consequences (especially with ME) you expect some of the consequences to come possibly in a sequel, what with BioWare now trying to pump up the import feature in their games. I think thats why many more mainstream reviewers give ME2 's story a pass, on the premise ME3 will fix everything and tie things up beyond a stupid little email. Not that BioWare games have ever really fulfilled that promise of cashing in on consequence via a sequel, but thats what ME3 is trying to do. But I don't expect they'll do it well there.

ME2's a good example of this. They went as close to BG II-style cannon as they could get away with given the import function. Not because that's a bad executive decision, mind you. Trying to create two different games for the price of one just isn't worth it. 

The mistake, though, is how Bioware still lets you have a say in the very major choices. At least with DA2 they realized that they can't possibly do justice to any major choice if it branches. The problem is that they didn't see the solution to having reactive content in the face of that. 

TW2's solution, IMO, is the ideal solution. Railroad the destination, but not the way to get there. 

Eh...the "flash and fluff" would be more stuff like having to include player VO or having every single damn dialogue cutscene have over the top cinematics when its a basic conversation. That kind of resource allocation. 

I know what your ax to grind is. But, IMO, you're missing the point. The real flash isn't cinematics or VO - it's the lip service to what it means to have a choice.

Although I can't understand praising TW2 and at the same time lamenting VO or cinematic direction too much - TW2 had both, and still executed the a reactive game. They just cut away at character customization instead. There's no reason why Bioware can't do the same, and to be honest, I thought it was what they'd do in DA2.

Cause I just don't see EA/BioWare taking the massive risk of doing something like CD Projekt did with TW2's branching content when they seem intent on sticking with that kind of presentation style, especially if they keep male and female leads. Thats why I'd be more content with scaling back on the presentation if it meant more consequence, even if it didn't have the PC gabbing while the camera does a Paul Greengrass shaky-cam back and forth as somebody simply says "Hello, how as your day." "My day was good." "Ok, bye."

TW2's branching content is the result of a much smaller game and very, very clever reclycling. No matter how much you really hate VO, the real obstacle to reactive content is the classical RPG mindset that is part-and-parcell associated with things like silent VO.

Why do you think the first story-based Western RPG to feature branching choice like TW2 did had a fixed male protagonist with VO? Because that way you can hedge the player really, really hard. Then, it becomes much easier to create detailed branches, because you essentially know who the player is running with and what attitudes the player has. 

Thats especially the case when you hear of how only X% of people finish the game. That seems to be the excuse devs trot out when people ask why plot thread Y didn't branch out into some unique quest Z-  Cause by that point only X% of people were playing or "You'd be making 2 entirely spearate games and nobody would see all the content in one playthrough" and how that would therefore be wasted work.

I've never agreed with a reactive business strategy. If gamers don't finish enough of your game, IMO, the solution is to try to create incentives to do it. Making shorter games with more branching paths, to me, achieves both ends.

I think BioWare is just blowing their zots in areas that are more superfluous when you're trying to make a reactive RPG- a video game- and not just a second rate interactive movie, given the constraints they have. But of course, thats if BioWare is trying to make a reactive video game and not just an interactive narrative, which going by interviews, is all they're trying to make now anyway.

Bioware's never wanted to make a reactive video-game, and so long as people advocate for silent VO, we'll never have a party-based, story-oriented, reactive video-game. 

[phaonica]

Because as I said in my other post, for Bioware the meaning of the choice is the in-character decision you made, not the actual consequence of it.

Without consequences, the personality you've built for your character is meaningless.

I clicked the snarky dialog option, so that means my character is snarky. But if no one *responds* to my snarkiness, then the character still exists in a void.

Choices have no meaning if there aren't consequences. Without consequences, nothing actually *happens*.

[mordarwarlock]

Wrong.....in the Templar end you become viscount...in the mage end, you become an outcast. You are either a rallying cry for mages freedom or oppression.

Orsino and Meredith destory themselves and turn on their own side due to their vices, just because you fight both doesn't mean the endings aren't different.

wrong...again, they both lead to the same outcome, Hawke becomes "someone" who stirs the fight between templars and mages, period

your choices do not matter, you CAN'T stop anders for killing half a city, you CAN'T stop meredith and help orsino or on the contrary, you CAN'T do anything other than sit there and kill them both and watch as you can't do anything to solve a single thing

seriously, stop with being a fanboy and stop lying to yourself, DA 2 ending it's exactly the same no matter what did you do in the game and they slap you with the fact that you end killing both sides and can't do anything to prevent it

want a game when your choices decide the outcome of EVERYTHING you do in the game and the story itself?, look at the witcher 2, a game that's 10 times better than what DA 2 could ever hope to be

Without consequences, the personality you've built for your character is meaningless.

I
clicked the snarky dialog option, so that means my character is snarky.
But if no one *responds* to my snarkiness, then the character still
exists in a void.

Choices have no meaning if there aren't consequences. Without consequences, nothing actually *happens*.

and 10 times this, withouth consequences, there's no reason for your character to do anything, there's not outcome to your choices so stuff happens "just because" and that's it

it's the biggest gripe when it comes to the way the story was told in DA 2, there's no consequence whatsoever and your "choices" are completely artificial, making them void and meaningless

Modifié par mordarwarlock, 13 juillet 2011 - 06:12 .

[In Exile]

phaonica wrote...
Without consequences, the personality you've built for your character is meaningless. 

I completely agree with you. That's exactly why DA:O failed as an RPG, IMO. And why you can only have meaningful RPG content with VO. 

I clicked the snarky dialog option, so that means my character is snarky. But if no one *responds* to my snarkiness, then the character still exists in a void.

DA2 was very good at responding to the snarky. It was too much, in fact, with all the ''you jest'' and ''be serious'' and ''very funny''-ies going about.

Choices have no meaning if there aren't consequences. Without consequences, nothing actually *happens*.

Absolutely. But I find it hard to fault Bioware for building DA2 on this principle when DA:O was praised for it. 

Modifié par In Exile, 13 juillet 2011 - 06:15 .

[phaonica]

In Exile wrote...

I completely agree with you. That's exactly why DA:O failed as an RPG, IMO. And why you can only have meaningful RPG content with VO. 

I wouldn't say DAO or DA2 "failed as an RPG". At least, no more than any previous "RPG" where you as a player make no choices at all and just go with whatever the main character of the game does. But that goes into the definition of an RPG, which I don't want to get into.

And though I agree that your actions in DAO didn't have any far-reaching consequences until the epilogue, I had hoped that DA2's framed narrative and 10year span would allow for the improvement in this aspect that it claimed. But it did not, imo.

DA2 was very good at responding to the snarky. It was too much, in fact, with all the ''you jest'' and ''be serious'' and ''very funny''-ies going about.

DAO was also good at responding to your dialog choices, imo. The point is that the response is the consequence. The response is what makes the choice meaningful, not the choice itself.

Absolutely. But I find it hard to fault Bioware for building DA2 on this principle when DA:O was praised for it. 

Perhaps the difference is that while DAO's choices might be lacking in player agency, the main character still functions as a protagonist, a catalyst for the story to move forward, as opposed to in DA2 where while the choices may still be lacking in player agency, the main character functions mostly as a reactionary to the main conflict.

Modifié par phaonica, 13 juillet 2011 - 06:33 .

[In Exile]

phaonica wrote...
I wouldn't say DAO or DA2 "failed as an RPG". At least, no more than any previous "RPG" where you as a player make no choices at all and just go with whatever the main character of the game does. But that goes into the definition of an RPG, which I don't want to get into.

I think reactions (not big story choices, but NPCs actually reacting to you behaviour and beliefs) is a Big Thing ™ for RPGs. I'm more than happy not to define RPGs for the 563,322 time, though. 

And though I agree that your actions in DAO didn't have any far-reaching consequences until the epilogue, I had hoped that DA2's framed narrative and 10year span would allow for the improvement in this aspect that it claimed. But it did not, imo.

Not even a little. And it was worse, because at times I just felt like the game was taunting me with the way things did turn out. ''Oh, they caught [....] and the escaped [....]? Well, that just sucks.''

DAO was also good at responding to your dialog choices, imo. 

DA:O was brutal. Putting aside how it would respond to a tone you might not even have sometimes, you very rarely did anything more than make blunt and short statements. There wasn't a thing to respond to most of the time. 

But no, I really, really disagree.

The point is that the response is the consequence. The response is what makes the choice meaningful, not the choice itself.

But what do you mean by consequence? There's a follow-up to every dialogue choice, but that can't be the consequence, because any RPG with a dialogue system has it.

Perhaps the difference is that while DAO's choices might be lacking in player agency, the main character still functions as a protagonist, a catalyst for the story to move forward, as opposed to in DA2 where while the choices may still be lacking in player agency, the main character functions mostly as a reactionary to the main conflict.

I don't see the PC as an agent at all. Flemeth advances the story at Ostgar. After that, you run errands until the Landsmeet (where the conflicts are already in play and you just do someone a favour to get an army). Then, after the Landsmeet, someone else chooses how and when the main conflict progresses. You don't even get to pick a plan for the army despite leading it! 

DA2 is as bad as DA2 when it comes to neutralizing the player and forcing a fixed ending any time the actual fight against the blight is concerned. 

[phaonica]

In Exile wrote...

DA:O was brutal. Putting aside how it would respond to a tone you might not even have sometimes, you very rarely did anything more than make blunt and short statements. There wasn't a thing to respond to most of the time. 

But no, I really, really disagree.

Then we'll just have to disagree. Just because one side of the conversation is text and the other side of the conversation is verbal, to me that doesn't mean that there wasn't a thing to respond to. Before there were vocals in games, all dialog was short text, but that didn't mean a meaningful conversation wasn't occuring.

But what do you mean by consequence? There's a follow-up to every dialogue choice, but that can't be the consequence, because any RPG with a dialogue system has it.

It was a response to the idea that someone proposed that DA2 was full of choices and consequences, but they were mostly dialog choices and consequences, and those consequences consist almost entirely of changing the perspective of various characters, and not of changing the main story conflict. If you were to take out the mechanic whereby your choices have any affect on your party, one might find that their choices have little to no impact at all on any other part of the story.

I don't see the PC as an agent at all. Flemeth advances the story at Ostgar. After that, you run errands until the Landsmeet (where the conflicts are already in play and you just do someone a favour to get an army). Then, after the Landsmeet, someone else chooses how and when the main conflict progresses. You don't even get to pick a plan for the army despite leading it!

In DAO, I felt like that if you took the Warden out of the story, the main conflict could have had a significantly different outcome, as opposed to in DA2 where I feel that the main conflict would have played out mostly the same if Hawke had never arrived in Kirkwall.

Modifié par phaonica, 13 juillet 2011 - 07:46 .

[txgoldrush]

mordarwarlock wrote...

Wrong.....in the Templar end you become viscount...in the mage end, you become an outcast. You are either a rallying cry for mages freedom or oppression.

Orsino and Meredith destory themselves and turn on their own side due to their vices, just because you fight both doesn't mean the endings aren't different.

wrong...again, they both lead to the same outcome, Hawke becomes "someone" who stirs the fight between templars and mages, period

your choices do not matter, you CAN'T stop anders for killing half a city, you CAN'T stop meredith and help orsino or on the contrary, you CAN'T do anything other than sit there and kill them both and watch as you can't do anything to solve a single thing

seriously, stop with being a fanboy and stop lying to yourself, DA 2 ending it's exactly the same no matter what did you do in the game and they slap you with the fact that you end killing both sides and can't do anything to prevent it

want a game when your choices decide the outcome of EVERYTHING you do in the game and the story itself?, look at the witcher 2, a game that's 10 times better than what DA 2 could ever hope to be

Without consequences, the personality you've built for your character is meaningless.

I
clicked the snarky dialog option, so that means my character is snarky.
But if no one *responds* to my snarkiness, then the character still
exists in a void.

Choices have no meaning if there aren't consequences. Without consequences, nothing actually *happens*.

and 10 times this, withouth consequences, there's no reason for your character to do anything, there's not outcome to your choices so stuff happens "just because" and that's it

it's the biggest gripe when it comes to the way the story was told in DA 2, there's no consequence whatsoever and your "choices" are completely artificial, making them void and meaningless

Don't get me started on The Witcher 2's ending now.........its even more disappointing than DAII's.

You can't stop Anders, Orsino, and Merdith like you can't stop the generic orc army from attacking generic capital city in DAO. Its part of the plot. The extremists are the antagonists of DAII just like the buttspawn of DAO...they are going to antagonize and the protagonist has to react to it.

And how do I kill both sides....last time i checked Cullen was still alive and reacted differently whether I sided witht he Templars or the mages.

And like I said earlier, the ending to the inside of the frame changes with Hawke's decision even though the outside of the frame narrative does not.

And if you are going whine about DAII's ending, do I need to pull up Fallout 2's main ending, Planescape Torment's, or Baldur's Gate II's ending to show how much hypocrites old school RPG elitists are?

Modifié par txgoldrush, 13 juillet 2011 - 07:57 .

[Kilshrek]

In Exile wrote...

phaonica wrote...
Without consequences, the personality you've built for your character is meaningless. 

I completely agree with you. That's exactly why DA:O failed as an RPG, IMO. And why you can only have meaningful RPG content with VO. 

Excuse me, but what about the abundance of RPG's that came before VO was practical? Your BG's, your FO's, Arcanum, KOTOR, et al. ? All of these only had several key characters who were voiced, and none of them could be considered as "failed" RPG's by any stretch of the imagination, only perhaps through a lack of it.

Time was that NPCs would respond to your choice of dialogue, and that was done damn well in Fallout. Hardly any of it needed to be voiced. I would say that VO increases the restrictions with which to make a fully immersive game, simply because of the cost involved in voicing multiple responses. I imagine that writing out lines upon lines of dialogue(such as having 5 different written responses) is much more economical than having only a positive or a negative voiced response.

Voicing is all good and well but I feel it comes at too high a cost.

txgoldrush wrote...

And if you are going whine about
DAII's ending, do I need to pull up Fallout 2's main ending, Planescape
Torment's, or Baldur's Gate II's ending to show how much hypocrites old
school RPG elitists are?

Please do, because I remember Fallout 2, despite the one ending, having a metric crap ton of other events that you could influence. Granted it was in the epilogue form which is strangely detested, I can give you a minimum of 3 "major" events in the world that the PC could influence as well come the end of the game. You end the game in one way(by beating the big bad), but there are multiple "endings" to the story of the chosen one.

Modifié par Kilshrek, 13 juillet 2011 - 08:03 .

[In Exile]

phaonica wrote...
Then we'll just have to disagree. Just because one side of the conversation is text and the other side of the conversation is verbal, to me that doesn't mean that there wasn't a thing to respond to. Before there were vocals in games, all dialog was short text, but that didn't mean a meaningful conversation wasn't occuring.

You're switching definitions on me. Before, you said consequences. Now, you say meaningful conversation. 

I'm not going to comment on what made a conversation meaningful; but I am going to comment on how you can build a reactive conversation. A major part of that is a response to the conversation as written, and very detailed and fixed lines (with known tone) are integral to that. 

That's what VO offers, by and large. Beyond that, VO in virtue of giving you a more fixed character allows you to start using dialogue to define the beliefs and goals and views of the character explicitly, and to make that personal development part of the game. 

It was a response to the idea that someone proposed that DA2 was full of choices and consequences, but they were mostly dialog choices and consequences, and those consequences consist almost entirely of changing the perspective of various characters, and not of changing the main story conflict. If you were to take out the mechanic whereby your choices have any affect on your party, one might find that their choices have little to no impact at all on any other part of the story.

Wait, so you were talking about consequences in the story and not dialogue? I thought you were talking about there being no consequences as a response to the dialogue?

In DAO, I felt like that if you took the Warden out of the story, the main conflict could have had a significantly different outcome, as opposed to in DA2 where I feel that the main conflict would have played out mostly the same if Hawke had never arrived in Kirkwall.

I didn't have the same feeling. DA:O made it feel like any Warden could have done what our Warden did; there was nothin special or interesting about the character other than right place and right time. 

Modifié par In Exile, 13 juillet 2011 - 08:06 .

[txgoldrush]

Kilshrek wrote...

In Exile wrote...

phaonica wrote...
Without consequences, the personality you've built for your character is meaningless. 

I completely agree with you. That's exactly why DA:O failed as an RPG, IMO. And why you can only have meaningful RPG content with VO. 

Excuse me, but what about the abundance of RPG's that came before VO was practical? Your BG's, your FO's, Arcanum, KOTOR, et al. ? All of these only had several key characters who were voiced, and none of them could be considered as "failed" RPG's by any stretch of the imagination, only perhaps through a lack of it.

Time was that NPCs would respond to your choice of dialogue, and that was done damn well in Fallout. Hardly any of it needed to be voiced. I would say that VO increases the restrictions with which to make a fully immersive game, simply because of the cost involved in voicing multiple responses. I imagine that writing out lines upon lines of dialogue(such as having 5 different written responses) is much more economical than having only a positive or a negative voiced response.

Voicing is all good and well but I feel it comes at too high a cost.

However, not voicing characters comes at a disadvantage as well...more so in Bioware games, but less so in Bethesda style ones.

Why?

Because it makes conversations feel far less natural, taking players out of the experience. What if JC Denton didn't have a voice, would JC be as cool? Hell no. JC's voice was a defining feature of Deus Ex...see Adam Jansen in the upcoming prequel. Geralt is another character that was far better voiced than he would be if he wasn't voiced.

The old games not having VO protagonists were acceptable for the time frame, but now, outside of Beth's games, its no longer an option to have protagonists not voiced, especially after Mass Effect's release.

[In Exile]

Kilshrek wrote...
Excuse me, but what about the abundance of RPG's that came before VO was practical? Your BG's, your FO's, Arcanum, KOTOR, et al. ? All of these only had several key characters who were voiced, and none of them could be considered as "failed" RPG's by any stretch of the imagination, only perhaps through a lack of it.

I don't want to derail the thread. I am talking specifically about PC VO, and if you want to take it further than that, we can talk about it in PM.

Time was that NPCs would respond to your choice of dialogue, and that was done damn well in Fallout. 

No, it wasn't. But at least the writing had flavour. What Fallout lacked, what BG lacked, was the ability to talk about yourself and the ability to just plainly banter. 

Hardly any of it needed to be voiced. I would say that VO increases the restrictions with which to make a fully immersive game, simply because of the cost involved in voicing multiple responses. I imagine that writing out lines upon lines of dialogue(such as having 5 different written responses) is much more economical than having only a positive or a negative voiced response.

The number of lines doesn't matter. It's how well the NPCs react to what is said, and how much you can say to define yourself directly in speaking. 

[Kilshrek]

txgoldrush wrote...
However, not voicing characters comes at a disadvantage as well...more so in Bioware games, but less so in Bethesda style ones.

Why?

Because it makes conversations feel far less natural, taking players out of the experience. What if JC Denton didn't have a voice, would JC be as cool? Hell no. JC's voice was a defining feature of Deus Ex...see Adam Jansen in the upcoming prequel. Geralt is another character that was far better voiced than he would be if he wasn't voiced.

The old games not having VO protagonists were acceptable for the time frame, but now, outside of Beth's games, its no longer an option to have protagonists not voiced, especially after Mass Effect's release.

Why is it not acceptable? Is it written in stone somewhere that the gold standard of RPG's is that the PC must be voiced? It works well when you're going for the cinematic experience with your game, which has been Bioware's goal for the longest time, but when a game is just out to be a game, as indie RPG devs are showing, your PC need not be voiced for the game to have meaningful "dialogue". Not at all.

[In Exile]

Kilshrek wrote...
Why is it not acceptable? Is it written in stone somewhere that the gold standard of RPG's is that the PC must be voiced? 

The gold standard of RPGs the ability to role-play, which I would argue is the ability to have the world react to choices you make and recognize them on the basis of how you made them. 

So long as you use dialogue in an RPG to define characters except for the PC, and you make the main role of dialogue an interactive method of quest delivery, you're never going to be able to develop any meaningful role-play.

[Kilshrek]

In Exile wrote...

I don't want to derail the thread. I am talking specifically about PC VO, and if you want to take it further
than that, we can talk about it in PM.

I thought I was talking about PC VO, because all those games didn't have voiced PC's. But if you feel it's off topic we'll discuss it by PM.

In Exile wrote...

No,
it wasn't. But at least the writing had flavour. What Fallout lacked, what BG lacked, was the ability to talk about yourself and the ability to just plainly banter.

I'm afraid I fail to see the difference there. If there is a specific NPC response to a specific line of dialogue isn't it responding to the players choice? Also there was a smallish amount of text banter in Fallout 2 iirc. Hawke certainly didn't have a great deal of "banter" in DA 2.

In Exile wrote...

The number of lines doesn't matter. It's how well the NPCs react to what is said, and how much you can say to define yourself directly in speaking. 

Yes, but that's true of DA 2 and DAO. Only you don't speak in DAO. I don't get the obsession with "speaking", because voiced or not the dialogue is the same as what is written down, which would appear as a menu instead of a wheel. The responses are the same because of the same reason.

Modifié par Kilshrek, 13 juillet 2011 - 08:18 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

In Exile wrote...

phaonica wrote...

In DAO, I felt like that if you took the Warden out of the story, the main conflict could have had a significantly different outcome, as opposed to in DA2 where I feel that the main conflict would have played out mostly the same if Hawke had never arrived in Kirkwall.

I didn't have the same feeling. DA:O made it feel like any Warden could have done what our Warden did; there was nothin special or interesting about the character other than right place and right time. 

Both the Warden and Hawke were in the right place at the right time. They were both victims of circumstance. The Warden never really chose to be a Warden but was given the option as a door to escape whatever fate. Hawke would have spent her days in Ferelden, if not Lothering, were it not for the Blight. There was nothing special or interesting about either -- it was the plot of the games that bestowed special as 'Warden' and 'Champion'.

I think the feeling about DAO having the possibility of different outcomes is that it *had* different outcomes. There were two very distinct outros sequences: One in which you live, one in which you die, and the former has a multitude of branches depending on if a companion died, was crowned, was an LI, not to mention your Origin cameo appearing at the coronation, boons and slides.

In contrast, DA2's outros were far too similar to one another and offered no extra fluff. They recognised absolutely nothing except who you sided with and who your LI was. "Become Viscount" was a bloody Achievement that blipped across the bottom of the screen...you don't even get to choose whether you accept or not

The difference between the Warden and Hawke in respect to their separate games is that you can play the Warden a number of different ways and, via the various choices throughout the game, have a multitude of different endgame experiences. The Blight always ends, but the state of the Ferelden and the characters within have a plethora of different combinations. Because we are told the effects of the Warden's choices and they are all presented to us right at the end in a nice summary, if you will, it feels like how we roleplayed our PC had a tangible effect on the game world.

But no matter how you play Hawke, the outtro is one or the other (excepting LI mention). Now...plenty of games only have one or two endgame sequences and I can't think of *any* bar DA:O that allows a final scene to RP before the curtain falls and the Summary Of Your Heroic Deeds rolls across the screen. Maybe that's the problem. DA:O spoiled us so much allowing us to play on beyond the Final Boss Fight and celebrate victory with our NPCs (or witness our own funeral o_O) that DA2's more traditional 'You Win - Here's The End Cinematic' finale falls flat for some of us. Epilogue slides were effectively replaced by letters of thanks sent to Hawke, or minor follow-up scenes and quests. It was effective in its own way and more engaging than slides, but it packs a completely different sort of punch.

It's another dividing issue, I guess. :/ Some gamers want to end on an exciting cinematic, and that's ok. I found being able to wind down and enjoy victory with my party members to be a brilliant, but that's because I loved the companions. Not everyone wants to bother with them.

...I think I derailed a bit from the subject of 'choice'. o_O

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 13 juillet 2011 - 09:38 .

[Xewaka]

txgoldrush wrote...
However, not voicing characters comes at a disadvantage as well...more so in Bioware games, but less so in Bethesda style ones.
Why?
Because it makes conversations feel far less natural, taking players out of the experience. What if JC Denton didn't have a voice, would JC be as cool? Hell no. JC's voice was a defining feature of Deus Ex...see Adam Jansen in the upcoming prequel. Geralt is another character that was far better voiced than he would be if he wasn't voiced.
The old games not having VO protagonists were acceptable for the time frame, but now, outside of Beth's games, its no longer an option to have protagonists not voiced, especially after Mass Effect's release.

I cannot fail to notice that your examples of characters engrossed by voice acting are pre-established characters. If we are given a pre-established character, I'm all for voicing him. If, however, we are expecting the ability to build our own character, voice acting becomes a zero-sum at best.